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Question:In what ways does the integral method differ from Eastern meditations used in the attempts to reach harmony with nature?

Answer:Eastern meditations are based on the annulment of the ego: breathing less, listening less, and eating less. In this way, having renounced everything, having isolated himself, a person lowers his ego and allegedly becomes a part of the world, returning to the state of animal. In other words, he specifically enters into his body.

On the contrary, with our method we go above our body. We want to broaden our sensations and consciousness, mainly thanks to integrality.

No matter how paradoxical it may sound, Eastern psychologists speak about the elevation of a person, however actually, he is lowered to such a level that he can’t even breathe, eat, or do anything. Most importantly, such people detach themselves from the world in order to deal with it individually, somewhere in their corner. Thus, this practice is not suitable for our world since all in all, it’s just relaxing, psychological training.

And the system of integral education speaks about the integrality of nature, the integrality of humanity within it: This is the only way you together with all of humanity can be integrated into the general picture, but not alone. You must create at least a small group, and afterwards you will understand that you need to develop further since it is the only way to overcome all the problems.

You begin to see that in nature there is a plan for our development. And purposely this plan brings us to a huge ego that developed in us during thousands of years so that we will understand that we need to get rid of it, to rise above it—not to destroy it, but to rise above it! That is the secret of our system.[104884]From a Talk on Integral Education 4/2/13